


Friends

by MaiKusakabe



Series: Legacy [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 12:57:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6006837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaiKusakabe/pseuds/MaiKusakabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tsuru and Garp have noticed that there is something going on with Sengoku.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this part ever since I started the story, but I wanted to get until Law's first birthday posted before I published it. I'm not quite satisfied with the result, but I don't think I can improve it, so here it is.
> 
> Chronology: Three years after Minion. Law is 16.

Tsuru hadn’t reached her position in the marines for no reason. She was observant, and she knew how to connect facts. What was more important in this case, though, was that she knew her friends well.

Sengoku had been acting strangely for a while now. Even Garp had noticed. Of course, Garp was no idiot, despite what his usual behavior may suggest, and he was far more perceptive than people gave him credit for. The fact that he was sitting before her desk right now just proved it.

"Any theories?" he asked.

Tsuru crossed her hands on the table.

"Maybe. I think we should talk to him. He’s scheduled to return next week."

 

* * *

 

 

Officers and soldiers alike moved out of their way as Garp and Tsuru passed them, and Tsuru noticed many people leaving the area, as if to put more distance between Sengoku’s office and themselves. She couldn’t blame them, it wasn’t uncommon for Garp’s visits to Sengoku’s office to end in a fight. She didn’t believe that would be the case this time, but she didn’t bother to say it. They could use the privacy.

Sengoku raised his head when they entered his office, and Garp slammed the door shut behind them with enough force to make it rattle. He wasn’t angry or anything, but Garp was unable to close a door like a normal person.

"You’ve been hiding something from us," Garp said in a singsong voice that didn’t fit a marine of his rank nor a grown man his age at all. Tsuru was too used to it to be unnerved anymore.

Sengoku raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but Tsuru had known him for too long to be fooled. She hadn’t missed the brief look that crossed Sengoku’s eyes. It was all the confirmation Garp’s words needed.

"What are you talking about?" Sengoku asked, the right level of exasperation in his voice.

Tsuru just gave him a steady look, Garp laughed and Sengoku, after a moment, sighed. Sengoku knew far too well that he wouldn’t be able to brush them off if they had seen fit to team up on him, and they all knew it. While Garp may be the sort of man to act on a hunch, if Tsuru was here it was because she had far more than a vague suspicion.

"What gave it away?"

"You’ve been spending all your vacation days," Tsuru explained and, at Sengoku’s skeptical look, elaborated. "You hadn’t done that since Rosinante joined the marines."

Sengoku sighed again, stood up and moved to the couches. Garp plopped down on one of them and Tsuru sat next to him.

"Tea?" Sengoku offered instead of sitting. He passed the couches and approached the counter where he kept snacks and drinks.

They both nodded.

Sengoku threw a bag of cookies at Garp before he started to prepare the kettle.

"I guess you have a theory?" he asked, looking at Tsuru.

"More or less," she answered, because, while she _did_ have an idea, she hadn’t pieced things together as much as she would have liked.

Sengoku put the kettle to boil and turned around, leaning against the counter in a familiar gesture that signaled she should explain. Tsuru was tempted to remind him this wasn’t related to work and he shouldn’t act as his superior, but she didn’t.

"After you took that month off three years ago," she started instead, "you went to the archives. If it had been something related to work, you would have sent someone else to do it, so it had to be personal. I thought you had decided to find the boy with the Amber Lead Syndrome, to ask for some answers, but..."

"But I never showed up with a kid and you started to doubt," Sengoku finished for her, and she nodded. Even if the boy hated the government, he was still a kid alone in the world, and not many kids would choose to live like that over a stable place to live and the safety it provided. Because Tsuru knew Sengoku wasn’t so heartless as to abandon the kid to his own luck if he had managed to find him.

"Until now. This is the third year you have been away for the start of October. I’m starting to doubt it’s a coincidence."

"No, it’s not. I did find him."

Garp grinned at Tsuru. When they had talked about this, he had said that maybe the kid had chosen to live on his own, using his own childhood as an example that it could happen. Tsuru had pointed out that not many children were as crazy as Garp. Maybe she should reconsider about this one.

"Then?" she asked.

"Law, that’s his name, would never agree to come here," Sengoku said, shaking his head fondly. "He really hates the government, and I can’t blame him for it."

"And he agreed to see you despite that?" Tsuru asked skeptically. If this Law hated the government so much she couldn’t come up with any reason why he would agree to meet with the leader of the marines so regularly.

A dark look, one they had become familiar with in the past three years, crossed Sengoku’s face.

"He did." He sighed. "You two don’t know everything that happened back then."

He didn’t need to elaborate when ‘back then’ was.

Sengoku told them about the last six months of Rosinante’s life, his quest to heal Law, the Ope Ope no Mi and how he had disobeyed Sengoku’s final order to stay away from the transaction for the fruit, stolen it, fed it to Law and finally died at Doflamingo’s hand.

By the time the story was over, the water had long since boiled, and Sengoku was sitting on the other couch halfway through his second cup of tea.

"So," Garp said in a slightly forced cheerful note, and Tsuru knew he was going to try to diffuse the dark mood even before he continued, "you’re a grandfather now?"

Sengoku smiled.

"Yes. It wasn’t part of the plan. The kid kind of grew on me," he said, before taking a sip of his tea.

Garp laughed.

"They do that, yes. How old is he?"

"He just turned sixteen."

"Early October is his birthday, then?" Tsuru asked, and Sengoku nodded.

"Why are there no pictures of him?" Garp asked, looking around the office.

Tsuru did, too, because it was obvious that Sengoku cared, but there really weren’t any pictures around other than the one that showed Tsuru, Garp and Sengoku when they had been young: not of Law, and not of Rosinante. _Huh_ , Tsuru hadn’t thought about that. It had made sense that Sengoku didn’t have any pictures of Rosinante when Rosinante had been infiltrated in the Donquixote Pirates, but now?

Sengoku sighed, and the heaviness of the act told her there was something else coming they wouldn’t like.

"If I tell you this, I want you to promise me you won’t do anything stupid. This goes mostly for you, Garp," he added, giving Garp a hard look.

Garp nodded reluctantly. If Sengoku asked that, it meant whatever it was would make Garp want to get violent.

"There’ a spy in the marines."

 

* * *

 

 

Naturally, once Sengoku told them about Vergo, he and Tsuru had to jump Garp to restrain him while Sengoku explained why beating the crap out of Vergo and throwing him into Impel Down would be a terrible idea.

It took a while, but finally Garp agreed to let Vergo -mostly- be. He did say he would spring ‘training’ sessions on him whenever Vergo showed up at headquarters, something Sengoku had nothing against.

"So, you got any pictures somewhere?" Garp asked, and Sengoku nodded.

He couldn’t display them for fear of Vergo —or a possible undiscovered second spy, because one never knew with Doflamingo— connecting Law to him and using that information to track Law down, but Sengoku had some pictures. He kept them in the same drawer where Rosinante’s were.

Garp had treated Sengoku to lots of pictures of Luffy over the years —he even had some of Dragon in his office, much to some people’s dismay— and he seemed just as enthusiastic about seeing Law’s.

"He looks like a little shit," Garp commented, laughing, when he saw one of the pictures from this last birthday. Law was fine with appearing on pictures, but he couldn’t just smile at the camera like a normal person. In this particular picture he was smirking while he gave the camera the finger.

Law was growing really fond of that gesture.


End file.
